Understand Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load: 5 Key Principles for Better Blood Sugar Control

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Managing blood sugar levels is crucial for overall health, especially for those with diabetes or prediabetes. Two important concepts to understand to manage health and wellbeing when making food choices especially if you want to manage diabetes are the Glycemic Index (GI) and Glycemic Load (GL). Here are five principles to help you make better food choices based on these concepts: 1. Prioritize Low Glycemic Index Foods The Glycemic Index (GI) measures how quickly a food raises blood sugar levels. Foods with a low GI cause a slower, more gradual rise in blood sugar, which is beneficial for maintaining stable energy levels and avoiding spikes. Examples of low GI foods include non-starchy vegetables, beans, and certain fruits like apples, pears, pomegranate and berries. 2. Consider Glycemic Load for a Comprehensive View Glycemic Load (GL) takes into account both the quality (GI) and quantity of carbohydrates in a food. This provides a more comprehensive understanding of a food’s impact on...

10 Tips To Healthy Meals for Family

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The person who prepares the meals have better control over the nutritional content and the overall healthfulness of the foods that family eats. So here are the 10 tips to healthy meals for family. Enjoy your day and Cheers!!


healthy meals for family

 

  • Its always better to Have at least one item that’s green (i.e vegetables) at mealtimes.
  • Its better to Have semi-skimmed milk in a cup of chai instead of full-fat milk.
  • Use and prepare foods that contain little or no salt.
  • Its better to eat a portion of fruit instead of an Indian sweetmeat.
  • Avoid using prepackaged seasoning mixes because they often contain a lot of salt also replace cream with low-fat yogurt in ‘creamy’ curries.
  • Its better to have Snack on unsalted nuts (such as walnuts, almonds, cashew etc.) instead of deep-fried pakoras, bhajis or packed eatables having food color and preservatives.
  • Its better to Use soybean instead of full-fat paneer cheese.
  • One can opt for wholemeal flour instead of plain flour when making chapatis as wholemeal flour has good fiber content.

NOTE: I recommend that, All nutrition suggestion should be read by keeping in mind, the principle of moderation as body requires anything and everything healthy in moderation but certain disease condition requires abandon or reduction of certain item such as salt in hypertension or artificial color in certain food allergies, which is case specific. But the article is carefully written and nevertheless following standard nutrition guidelines is a good health choice unless you are suffering from particular disease.

 

References and Further reading:

  1. http://www.choosemyplate.gov/
  2. http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/healthy-eating/Pages/Healthyeating.aspx
  3. http://www.nutrition.gov/smart-nutrition-101/healthy-eating
  4. http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/healthy_eating/recipes.html